July 4th Blowdown, 10 Years Later
July 3rd, 2009 | by Arthur Published in BWCAW, Environment, History
Tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of the July 4th, 1999 storm that caused so much devastation in the BWCA.
As in so many natural events, it seems difficult to resolve the violence with the idyllic beauty we expect. Thankfully though, if you’ve been up to the BWCA recently, you can see the evidence of the storm is being erased in nature more quickly than in our memories.
I was working at a camp in northwestern Wisconsin that day. We caught the bottom of that storm and spent most of the day surveying damage and making sure the campers were safely accounted for and sheltered. Later, we learned just how easily we’d gotten off. A couple weeks later I saw the Blowdown area firsthand, while clearing trails with a chainsaw.
Where were you that day?